


Evermore

by Val_Creative



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Action/Adventure, BAMF Arya Stark, Canon-Typical Violence, Family, Gen, House Stark, House Stark Family Feels (ASoIaF), Introspection, Laughter, Near Future, Post-Canon, Post-Season/Series 08 Finale, Protective Arya Stark, Sansa Stark is Queen in the North, Stargazing, Stark Family Reunion(s) (ASoIaF), Winterfell, World Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-11
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:40:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26273512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Val_Creative/pseuds/Val_Creative
Summary: Arya fails to sail west. She returns to Winterfell with nothing but the clothes on her back, lacking in high spirits.
Relationships: Arya Stark & Sansa Stark
Comments: 12
Kudos: 59
Collections: Friendship Flash Fall 2020





	Evermore

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FictionPenned](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FictionPenned/gifts).



> I rarely ever get to do Arya and Sansa by themselves so this has been fun! ✨✨✨ I love all of the Starks. Any excuse to do more of the Starks is welcoming for me. Thanks for coming in to read this. Any comments are deeply appreciated!

*

Men fear what they do not understand.

But… Arya is not a man. 

She claims a vessel built in the Iron Islands and picks a crew of under one hundred. It's a monstrously lean hull with two masts and no oars despite its make. They would rely on the seas and the winds themselves to carry them to where they needed to be. 

*

Arya mentally names her ship "Dagger's Point" for how swiftly it cuts through the waters. How quickly they arrive to port.

*

Once through the Narrow Sea, they head for Lannisport for spending what little coin for merrymaking. Getting out frustrations and carnal pleasures. From there, it will be months and months and months of nothing but the blackest and stormiest horizons. The endlessly deep seas capped in foaming white waves, raging with enough power to overturn a Valyrian ship.

No man has ever found land beyond the Sunset Sea. Voyagers from Pentos and Myr and Astapor, the Braavosi mapmakers and Lyseni pirates all doubt any civilizations exist that have not been reported in the Known World. They're _fools_.

Arya drinks by herself by an inn's window, draining a horn of ale, and nibbling on salted ham topped with walnuts and a thin, mushy gravy.

Two of the Lannisport whores coo over her. Touch Arya's face and kiss her mouth playfully. Arya allows them do as they wish, basking and sipping on strongwine. The delicious, hearty red liquid knocks Arya out when she finally dozes.

*

On their journey, many weeks into navigating the Sunset Sea, Arya passes an island of the Lonely Light. It's northwest of Great Wyk. As she's seen, there is little besides great grey rocks weathered down. Seals and sea lions bark viciously in the rookeries.

*

Dagger's Point encounters a tempest so violent that sixty-and-four of Arya's crew drowns. 

There _cannot_ be a crossing into what's west of Westeros. Not here.

*

Arya orders them into the southern-east region until they locate Ulthos. Or at least some chartless territory of Ulthos. Full of lowlands and volcanoes and forests along the border so dense and abyssal that Arya cannot see any light shining through.

She chooses a handful of older and more experienced men to come ashore. The younger seem nervous.

Arya begins to understand _why_.

Thousands of arrows, light and quick as a snow shrike, rain from above them. Dark, runny blood seeps into the greensands.

Arya rows back to Dagger's Point with whomever remains, as they pray and babble and groan from their injuries.

Not one of the indigenous persons of Ulthos allow them on land. Bodies of the crew's fallen… they _rot_ out in the sun's heat. Their flesh curdles and dries out to a bone-white greyness until stretched-sunken. The iron plated armor visibly melts.

It's a lichyard.

*

Thousands of gold dragons and silver stags means _piss-all_ in the face of another thousand arrows.

*

With the heavy, grievous cloak of tragedy following, they sail north. 

Arya wanders on deck, crouching to the rowboat littered with whitewood arrows protruding out.

She seizes one free.

 _Kahhikatea_ , the helmsman mutters. He has heard of the tree and its possible origin from the Citadel, but offers no further explanation. Arya keeps the arrow, to remind herself of what happened, fluffing the indigo-tinged plumes solemnly with her thumbpad.

*

Arriving to the Summer Islands comes as a blessing. 

The crew vanishes, scattering all over Jhala and Xon and Doquu. Arya doesn't curse them. It's a magnificent paradise teeming and tantalising with riches and pleasant odours and bright, colorful flowers. Golden wines. Creamcakes of juicy, wild berries.

She sells Dagger's Point and boards a merchant's ship travelling for Highgarden. From there, it _won't_ be long.

*

The ice-cold of Wolfswood blows under Arya's roughspun tunic.

Hoarfrost covers the wayns and open fields and strong stone-granite walls of the First Keep. Paler than milkglass. She enters through the main gatehouse, her head held high, prompting the watchtower's sentries to lower their crossbows. 

Everything stinks of a thurible's incense as Arya disappears into a narrow-way. Cloves and burnt rosemary leaves.

There's too many guards in the dimly lit gallery behind the throne's room.

Arya supposes that she won't find her sister in the Great Keep. Where the central aisle leads to a higher platform towering an oaken trestle table seating all the Stark family and their most honoured guests. Its surface glistens hardened wax-candles.

Instead, Arya lurks into Winterfell's godswood.

*

No matter how long it's been, Arya _still_ can count weirwoods and hawthorns. She can taste the juniper in the air. Frostfires and dusky blue winter roses. They said Lyanna Stark gathered them up in the moors, weaving, crowning herself on horseback.

Unlike their aunt, Sansa wears a thin, silvery circlet against her forehead. Her auburn hair cascades over Sansa's furs.

Arya drops to a knee, resting her sword arm across it and bowing her head. 

"Your Grace," she murmurs.

"Rise," Sansa commands, quiet as silk. The guards stay unmoved and blank-faced as their Queen reaches out, doing away with the formality to pinch Arya's nose hard enough to cut off her breathing. Grinning like a naughty child. 

" _Oi! Oi!"_ Arya yelps, getting dragged onto her feet — by her very nose. "You little _SHITE_!"

"That's treason."

Arya sneers and bats away Sansa's hand. "Chop off my head for it," she says mockingly. "Go on." Arya's own mouth curls up as her sister bursts out laughing. Furs — from snow bear and wolf and thick, oiled shadowcat pelts — they envelope Arya. 

Sansa hugs her fiercely, pushing their cheeks up.

"You shouldn't have left, Arya."

It's more of a grumbling reprimanding than a statement. Arya's heart clenches.

"I had to," she breathes. "You can't ask me to be sorry for that."

The furrow in Sansa's brow deepens. "What matters is that you are _home_ ," she tells Arya, letting go and holding Arya's face with both of her hands. The softly patterned fox-fur gloves tickle against bare, chilled skin.

" _Finally_."

*

Stars are the many, many eyes left behind of the Old Gods. 

Arya heard this before. She's heard that the stars are the last of the Weeping Lady's tears. They are the eternally bleeding wounds of the Great Shepard according to the Dothraki. They are the drops of poison given to Baelor the Beloved as he laid asleep. They are the immortal sparks of R'hallor's breath. Arya believes the stars are _nothing_. They exist in a chasm of darkness and death, and no-one is meant to understand why.

"You sound like Old Nan," Sansa complains. 

Through the diamond-shaped panes of glass, Arya stares up to the night. She grimaces occasionally as Sansa's pearl-ornate comb untangles Arya's hair. It reminds her faintly of how Lady Catelyn Stark would unknot Sansa's hair in these chambers.

"Better than _smelling_ like her…"

Sansa thumps the top of Arya's skull with the comb, laughing again when Arya turns to glare.

*

Arya is not a man.

She does not fear the unknown, but her insides roil upon glimpsing Sansa fast asleep. Her opened palms. The vulnerability.

This _is_ her home. Arya's home.

Evermore.

*


End file.
